Capture the Flag
by JeannetheCat
Summary: A message from the gods, excitable politicians and a completely overlooked wild card, the Moderates, sees Tortall's Court battling for supremacy in a game that requires wit and wittily executed fight sequences: Capture the Flag.
1. Shrews Are Mighty

The room smelled of many beaten Conservatives. In a word? Garlic. The Court was circular, with a ceiling similar in shape and color to a marble fruit bowl, minus the fruits, plus the pesky chandeliers, and had around two hundred sturdy oak chairs arranged in an appropriately circular fashion.

Lord Wyldon, sitting opposite to the Progressives' side of the room, peeled back one eyelid. Alanna, ready to explode with her accumulated excrement, sat squarely in front of him. You'd think, for all her experience, she would have mellowed with time, but as with many more abstract problems, that thought was alien to her.

He squinted a bit; he couldn't open the other eye. He—He just couldn't. It was resting for the Ordeal of the Technicolor Eyes to come. Neal with his emerald green eyes, King Jon with his sapphire blue eyes, Alanna with her amethyst purple eyes (though in Wyldon's opinion, it was more of a tanzanite color), Queen Thayet with her topaz eyes, the Lord Provost with his aquamarine ones, Raoul with his onyx eyes, Myles with his peridot eyes, and the list went on. What? Had their parents somehow pilfered the jewel shop and implanted it in their children's genes?

Wyldon shook his head. Alanna's red hair, phosphorescently pasty skin (not even one freckle; her skin was contrary to showing the sun that it had impacted it, albeit, for the better) should be banned for being capable of provoking an epileptic attack. _And_ the cut of her olive green tunic did nothing for her stocky build.

Sigh. He lowered his eyelid until he could only see a miserable sliver of his miserable surroundings. Alanna, the blasted sun streaming through the blasted bay windows, there was nothing good about these times that they were living in. It was the worst of times. Period.

He shifted on his chair, bumping the heavy desk in front of him with his knee. Pain? What was it? Seeing Alanna's smirk, he slapped his leg for good measure, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the empty room. Nothing. Pain was weakness leaving the body, and the pain refugees from his nervous system had long taken up residence in his opponents.

He watched as Alanna slowly raised a gloved hand; she grinned wildly.

She dropped three fingers, leaving her index and middle finger upright.

Wyldon closed his right eye further. Such vulgarity. He would have _immediately (_well, he liked to tell himself that_) _consented to Progressive ways if part of their platform was not on tearing down all conceptions of morality.

Alanna dropped her index finger; just the middle remained. But, Wyldon didn't see it, and so Alanna was incensed. She was just about to hustle to her feet, and stamp her foot, but at that precise moment the north entryway, to Wyldon's left and Alanna's right, burst open, allowing the King and every other person belonging at Court, into... Court.

Progressives, Conservatives and Moderates took their seats, fanning out to wherever their seats were. Expletives were exchanged between opponents, many shoves, as well, and more than a few death glares.

King Jonathan marched between the two sides to his throne on the dais, and, settling himself, began arranging a stack of papers. The silence was charged as everyone waited for him to open the meeting. He really was handsome, but not in the typical way. Ascetic features, but a certain softness in his blue eyes. Dark hair contrasting with pale skin, very firm jaw, high, exotic cheekbones, Wyldon ticked off.

Take that, Twitsaines! _Our king, is better than yours. _

"Alright." Jon smiled at all of them. His brilliantly white teeth gave Wyldon _chills_. Did any monarch have a smile so bright? Did any monarch's smile hold the ability to make Wyldon's heart go all fuzzy as only one other, Vivienne, his wife, could? "As you all know, we have gathered together on this day to receive a guideline, of sorts, from the gods."

He stood up, and descended the marble steps, until he was on the same platform as they. "Now, this is a once-in-a-century intervention. We will, judging by all the interventions in past history, completely wreck it, but, here's to trying, eh?" He smiled again, though notably less happy, and much more unhappy. Wyldon frowned. If that were possible.

He strode to the stand in the middle of the room. Just as he was about to start _The Summoning_, the heavy oak doors banged open, and in came a certain green-eyed individual.

"I sincerely apologize, dearest Uncle's, Aunt's, cousins, not-cousins, friends, and not-dearest_ not-_friends, but I had some urgent business to attend to, and thus," Neal bowed, "I was made late."

Neal waltzed, healer's robes swinging jauntily (Wyldon hated jaunty), to his place, where the Academia and the luke-warmies (Wyldon's term for the Moderates) sat. _Mithros will spit you out! Wyldon consoled himself. Like half-cooked bread!_

Neal raised a quizzical brow at the bemused King. "Did I interrupt something? Anything important, perchance?" Everyone allowed him one collective groan, and then ignored him. Nealan of Queenscove was legendary for his obnoxiousness, and, Wyldon grudgingly acknowledged, the only reason why he was still here was because he was—he was— he was... rather not stupid. Alright, intelligent _and _skilled. Accepting that knowledge made Wyldon grumpy.

"And now." King Jonathan rolled up his black sleeves with a flourish. "We shall begin."

After a series of passes, a few shrieks, and one fainting phase, though that was probably on accident rather than on protocol, a scroll burst from thin air, right in front of Jon. He took it and began reading."Oh, dear," he mumbled upon completing the very short scroll.

"The command is, 'The minority is always right. Follow the politics of the minority. Signed, Your Makers.'"

It took a while for that to stick in, partially because it didn't take a whole lot of intelligence to be a politician, Progressive or Conservative, partially because everyone was counting how many Conservatives and Progressives there were.

Lord Wyldon and Alanna both came up with a very undesirable number: they were dead equal at eighty, each. They did not once consider (though Neal did) the Moderates, of which there were only forty.

Neal tipped his head at Sir Gareth, the Younger, his cousin by his mother's family's calculation; how he was related to Gary, the Naxens in general, and the Contes in general, through his father's side, was much too complicated to think of at this early hour.

Neal blocked out the hushed muttering of the people surrounding him. If they played their cards right, they could, assuming they bid seven, win all thirteen tricks (he loved metaphors, especially those alluding to whist). Neal evaluated every Moderate.

They definitely had the intelligence aspect down, so a solid no-trump, but, physically, they were a little short. Just himself, his uncle, Uncle Gary, and his cousin, just Gary, and that didn't help much, since they were all swordsman, except for Gary who was best with the poleax.

Neal tapped his foot. He could probably, with a bit more practice, swing it with a crossbow. He considered the shrewish Duke Turomot (though it should be remembered that shrews are mighty animals, and can take down opponents that would, proportionately, make a wolverine turn tail) and frowned. Everyone else was either frail, disinclined to fight, or just plain incapable of practically applying their intense understanding of warfare and the weapons employed in it.

It was completely silent as these inner debates went on, but a frenzied roar built up until it could no longer be contained.

Alanna's knocked over chair slowly lowered itself to the floor, and only when it hit the floor with a loud thud was the silence broken.

"I've been meaning to tell all of you this for a long time," a voice rang out. The room had nice acoustics, Wyldon noted; he turned his head, looking for the speaker.

The very Conservative, though progressively nicer to the Progressives each day, Sir Paxton of Nond, rose out of his chair and cast a stoic glance to the sea of Conservatives. "But, I'm a Progressive." He skipped over to _their_ side, and squeezed himself in next to Keladry of Mindelan, smiling angelically the whole time.

That hadn't gone as expected, though what would follow was disgustingly predictable.

"And I." Numair extricated herself from the uncomfortable position of sitting in between the very much in love Raoul and Buri. "Though it may seem strange, have always revered the traditional ways of the Conservatives." He mouthed, "One for the team," at Alanna as he passed by.

And so it went back and forth, people coming out of the closet in terms of "secretly held politics" until everyone who was a Progressive was now a Conservative, and everyone who was a Conservative, was now a Progressive. Except for Alanna, and Wyldon, and the luke-warmies. They were still burning holes in their designated chairs.

"Alright." King Jon squinted at the piece of parchment, which rested rather mockingly in his right hand._ Ha, ha, ha. Bet you didn't see tha' one comin' now did ya, 'Ighness?"_

"It is time," he said for the second time this second day of the week. "To resolve this with the traditional methods for such a stalemate."

Humph. Lord Wyldon looked suspiciously at Neal's placid, composed face.

A dirtier part of history, the kind of part Progressive educators left out, surfaced in Lord Wyldon's brain. One hundred years ago, Kyprioth had sent down a command from the heavens: "Girls rule, boys drool, or is it the other way around? The winning gender inherits full rights to subjugate the losing gender."

How had they resolved it again? Wyldon and Alanna came to the conclusion at the same time: Alanna with contempt, and Wyldon with distaste. Of course, as Kyprioth had instituted that game, everyone had cheated. Sadly, the women had cheated less, and so was the game lost. Despicable. If anyone was going to win, it had to be fair.

They appraised each other. For once, they agreed. It was official; Wyldon had lost it, whatever "it" was.

"A week from now, so that you are allowed adequate preparations, we shall hold a competition ordained by the gods for a situation such as this."

King Jonathan set his jaw determinedly; he distinctly remembered the account of how the last game had turned out. Burning houses, flying, burning barrels of lard, the entire Prettybone district decimated (some honorable, bomb-making merchant thought it better to blow it up than to let the far more numerous Lower City inhabitants take it).

In short, something that absolutely wouldn't do to happen again.

"Capture the Flag. The rules go the playing ground shall be the Lower City, though that's only the starting point, for the game can extend in any direction and to wherever it pleases; each team has one flag that they must hide and protect, though they will have to issue a riddle that can be used to devise their flag's location."

He shifted so that he was staring at the large painting of his father and mother, and himself as a child, though particularly at the Moderates sitting underneath it, and most particularly of all, Neal. "Adjusting for this specific situation, the three teams must have eighty players each, but you are allowed to recruit additional players to that eighty, but the filler must all be commoners. The goal is to capture the flag, as the name goes. All violence is allowed, except for killing, and permanent _maiming_."

Alanna snorted, drawing his attention, and crossed her arms. "What about gouging? And define permanent. Loss of appendage permanent, or scarring permanent?"

"Yeah." Owen of Jesslaw sat behind Alanna to her right. "And are we, like, allowed to calculate for common medical procedure?" He leaned forward. "Like, if we lop off a hand or anything, could we do it so long as we know that it could, like, be reattached?"

Jon looked mournfully upwards and wished he could for the rest of the meeting; ethereal messengers of the gods and their adventures were depicted on the ceiling. So pretty. "Nothing that's effects last for over a week."

Neal stroked his non-existent beard contemplatively. "Now, it could be debated that a blow to the clavicle would result in a bruise that would last for over a month, depending on the weight of the object, and where exactly it, meaning the clavicle, was hit."

"You seem to be missing the point." Jon clapped his hands together, and stared tightly at everyone.

"This is why I'm rather perturbed in speaking of this game. There, and I hesitate to tell you this." Vivid images of George wielding one of his many knives, a truly manic grin on his face, flashed through Jon's brain. Mithros, and he was half-commoner, and therefore eligible to play... "Are virtually _no_ rules. Or, at least, the ones that are in place have so many loopholes, they're practically fuel for breaking the rules of whatever is yet unbroken."

Everyone over fifty groaned; the walls shook with the sound. Everyone under fifty grinned, and it seemed as if the sun flickered for a moment, shocked at the competition. And, albeit in a rather constipated manner, Wyldon... was grinning, too.

* * *

_It should be mentioned that Duke Gareth, the Elder, was grinning as well, though he was well advanced in years, yet still spry, and still confirmed to be the best swordsman, bar none, in all the land, in all the universe, in all of **history**. Despite all snark, usually taken from the illustrious and exceptional, though comparatively inexperienced Alanna the Lioness, Duke Gareth still, most definitely, was _**the**_ best. _

_It should also be noted that the previous footnote was added by Duke Gareth, the Elder, himself._

_It should be mentioned that an unnamed red-head has difficulty in accepting that she is not the best at everything, and that she, though rather proficient at some things, isn't the absolute best at _anything_._

…_Touche._

_And this footnoter taught the previous footnoter how to do just that._

_...Touche. Again._

_This footnoter perceives sarcasm on the part of the noter of the previous note._

_*draws sword* This footnoter says let's end this right here, right now._

_*disarms in ten seconds* Ended._


	2. Trolls and SpitShakes

Author's Note: _I haven't updated this literally in ages. I was twelve when I wrote the first chapter, and now I'm fifteen. Not sure why I'm doing this now, but I got inspired. I hope you find it enjoyable, dear reader. ^_^ All constructive criticism is much appreciated._

The meeting room was off to the side and dull, but as the Moderates official headquarters, it had a wooden throne at the north end of it. There were forty stools, but only three inhabited the wasteland. Completely unaware of his stalwart audience, Neal reclined on the throne, _dreamily_ considering the ceiling, as he had done for the past three hours. Except for the fact that he was actually having a nightmare.

_Twenty minutes into the game, half his side had seizures. Forty minutes in, the half of the half was down from calling their enemies attacks, ignoring the inconvenient fact that the attacks had to be dodged or returned, and that the sword was mightier than the word in any fight not a poetry duel. The remaining 25 percent then decided the game was stupid, and winning was for losers. At the end of the game, he was walking through the streets up to the palace, dust billowing around him and tiptoeing into the tracks his tears left on his face. He was confronted with both the Progressives and the Conservatives engaged in some sort of party. He never lived it down, never extracted the immense, incomparable joy from calling out esoterically titled battle formations. Never shouted, "Unicorn Dynamite localize!" Never—_

"Nealan!" There was one window in the entire forty by sixty foot room, and Neal could see the sun setting through it. Its last rays touched the speaker, Gary. Neal sniffed. He looked like a luminescent troll. A little boy—who happened to be 6'7" and mysteriously still growing—who'd stumbled too far from his mushrooms. "Stop dreaming in italics, and let's get a battle plan!" Gary roared. _Too far, too far._

"Can we just marvel that I went from dream-consciousness to alertness without any transition?"

"Neal, this is serious," old one Gary (Gareth, but humor was as humor did, in Neal's opinion, and that was more than any drug could do) intoned. Older old troll, Neal viciously thought at him. "If you really believed in our policies and principles, you would be concerned."

"Come on! You know we're Progressives but for the fact that we know what diplomacy is! Besides, who said I'm not serious?" Bang, bang, bang, bang, a series of bang-bang thoughts burst into self-admiring being in Neal's mind. _Beat the system, take a third option_. "Baby, I'm gonna _play_."

"The room would be full of eager compatriots if you WERE SERIOUS!" Aram Sklaw gruffled. It was amazing how Neal went from feeling bad to feeling awesome in less than ten seconds. _This is what genius feels like_. Four hours before midnight, and he'd made up a word. "Gruffled". "You think we're gonna swing this thing based on intelligence, but that's where you're wrong. _You're_ stupid, and you're our leader." Considering this a knock-down argument, Sklaw stormed out of the room, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him.

Wide-eyed, Neal turned to Gareth and the Troll. "I suppose this is where we turn this thing into a musical. I'll start: I could've dance all night! I—"

"Shut up. I saw that look right before Sklaw erupted. You thought of something," Gary said. Maybe he wasn't a troll. More like an extremely dynamic mega-pixie. But that was being kind, and Neal was comedic, which was more opposite to kind than mean was.

"Thirty minutes." And Neal began thinking, or rather, phrasing and defining. He often did things for reasons he later figured out. Some would scoff at this, call it impulsiveness, but Neal took it as evidence of his complex and sophisticated mind. His dream sequence was rather out of character, so his brain was _obviously_ subconsciously attempting to eliminate from the group all those who were extraneous to the strategizing. _Okay, think, think._ Yes! He would definitely utilize his underworld contacts. Gods, that would be fun. _Will be_, he corrected himself. But, everyone, especially the Progressives, would be doing that. He wanted to make a statement, make a point. Satire, parody, lampoonery of the establishment, that's what Neal wanted. A flamboyant, completely bewildering knockdown draw-out fought simultaneously against both sides on all fronts. As to specific battle plans, that would come later. If his Force was capable of being capable, that was all that mattered: if they were. If they weren't, no specifications on earth would matter. No, he'd set up his system, make it beautiful, and watch Corus tumble at its feet.

"AHHHHHHahahahaHAHAHA!" Neal screamed. "Never, will they ever expect!"

Gareth looked at his son and facetiously rolled his eyes. "I knew we were going to win."

Neal hastily cast a few light orbs, as the room was almost completely dark. The effect of the green lights on his face was creepy, and he only just suppressed the immense inclination to improv a deliciously evil villain song. _'Twould be glorious, but 'tis not to be._ Neal disregarded the stairs and jumped from the five-foot high dais. Upon impact, he sank into a crouch. Partially to absorb the shock of impact, partially because he had a subplot going. Court opinion had started settling towards Nealan of Queenscove having mellowed with age, less crazy, more old-man dry. His friends didn't call him the Phosphorescent Lime for nothing, and nobody would ever doubt it.

"So, uh, what's the big idea?" Gary asked. Neal noticed his discomfort at not being the criminal mastermind, _the_ crazy genius for the first time in his life. _You're getting old! _

"Child armies! Plural!" he sang. "Them lower city urchins be more smart than all them Cons and Pros put together, y'all!"

"Mithros."

"Whatever it takes," Gareth assured his son. "And you know that'll work."

(-.-(-.-)-.-)

"How much and in what denominations? Candy, toys, cold hard coinage?" Neal looked Joanna Kingfisher in the eyes. He could see into souls, but only the dirty bits. At ten, Joanna was therefore unreadable, but intelligence was evident in her unimpressed brown eyes.

"Mister, this sounds like a game. A real fun game, and no nobleman's gonna waltz in here and tell me I'm gonna get paid for playing a game. That would be admitting the world's as rotten as I'm beginning to think it is." _Well, sweet child, you _are_ running the second biggest criminal operation in Corus, so naturally, you'd think that_, Neal wanted to say, but looking around the dimly lit room in the center of the Lower City's black market, he admitted that twenty tough pre-adolescents against one unarmed nobleman did not offer good odds in his favor.

"So you'll play."

He would never forget the sound of twenty-one kids simultaneously spitting into their palms. As if on command, they snapped into a line, starting with Billy Hart, a child missing two front teeth and common respect for personal space. "Damn right we'll play, Mr. Nealan!" If the eleven-year-old were taller, Neal's face would have been coated in saliva enthusiastically deployed. Twenty-one spit shakes later, and Neal's mouth was as dry as his hand was wet.

"Two o'clock tomorrow at the old palace gymnasium. Be there, comrades!"

"A. M." Joanna stared him down.

"A. M., duh! and we'll train so hard we'll get back to P. M., except going backwards, not forwards!"

"That Nealan of Queenscove," Bill Hart said as Neal exited the Dancing Bear. "He jokes like a man with too much candy and no children to give it to."

Behind and in front of him, Neal and Joanna simultaneously mouthed, "The hell, Hart?"

(-.-)x21 + (-.-)x40

"Tough crowd," Neal commented, tied up and blindfolded in the heart of the Strollin' Lion.

"We saw you leave the Dancing Bear. We know you're working with them," said an earnest boy of twelve years.

"No, I came over here to make us all one big happy family," and so Neal proceeded to explain his mission. In the end, Gregory Whales sounded hopeful. He confided to Neal that he didn't like all the rivalry. Besides, that Joanna was a mighty fine woman, whatever that meant.

"So, yeah... Do you all want compensation?"

Straight-man Leopold Dunn rolled his eyes. "It's obvious _they_ didn't ask for any, so do you think we're any less idealistic? If Life wasn't like _this_, we wouldn't have to _work_, we could play or do whatever the noble children do. We wouldn't have to play-act as adults because those idiots don't know what's going on." It was rather inspiring to Neal that Leopold obviously now considered him a fellow child.

"Believe me, they are the devil's spawn, the lot of them," Neal proudly reflected on his own children's accomplishments. On top of being genius, awesome Yamani-Queenscove wonders, they had _spice_. They would soon outshine his own mischievous exploits, despite the fact that they were all younger than fourteen.

"We'll do it." Gregory smiled up at him. "It sounds like good fun, and I think I support your platform. I'm not sure yet, though, 'cause my opinions haven't had enough time to mature, as they hopefully will by the time I'm of voting age." Around him, eighteen kids nodded fervently, even Leopold Dunn.

_Mithros_, Neal smiled ruefully to himself on his way out. They _were_ idealists. They thought they'd see Tortall a republic before they were eighteen. Gods, they knew what a republic was! _I wonder if Jon and Thayet know these particular results of increased literacy rates, yet_.

Walking through the vibrant Lower City, Neal couldn't help speculate to that end. Jonathan and Thayet were the best rulers Tortall had ever seen, how much better if they proved to the world that their subjects and not just historians believed that, too? This Capture the Flag thing seemed stupid and divisive, but Neal wondered why no one had realized it was a beautiful concept. Safe, fun revolution, no military coup, no disestablishing of the establishment, just some awakening and rejuvenation. It was perfect.

Most people didn't believe him when he said, "I don't like to stand out," but dressed as a commoner, Neal knew and showed what he meant. People were supposed to stand out because of thoughts and identities, not because of mere pieces of fabric sewn together, their particular kind of stitching literally splitting, separating all shared humanity. It was pathetic, really, and one of the few things that Neal saw no humor in.

"I got it!" Neal shouted at the sky. Nobody glared; a few around him laughed, busy and occupied as they were. How different commoners and nobles still were! Nobles had quite a long way to go, in Neal's opinion. "Got it," he smiled. The one rule in Capture the Flag, a centuries'-old institution. The one _rule_: any addition must be a commoner, common-born. Maybe the gods knew what they were doing sometimes, after all._ Bother them, though_, Neal sighed. _Time to stop leaving things up to angels in the skies, and time to start making an honest effort to rectify evils down here._

Training started tomorrow with his Core, Tier One. He'd keep searching around for single-operatives. That one strike, that one stink bomb thrown in a cluster of uptight Conservatives would always be king in the lightning-strike-change game that Capture the Flag was. Nearing the palace, Neal's mind was filled with glorious and motivating team bonding workouts, his heart with hope and forward-looking dreams.

"Fun, fun, fun, but not for everyone, once I'm done, and it's WON!" Neal sang, crossing the drawbridge. The guardsmen shook their heads in disapproval. Gods, the Conservatives' attitudes were getting to them.

(-.-)x21 + (-.-)x40 + (-.-)x19 = (-.-)x79 + 8D = Happy Neal


End file.
